Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 11

LEO STRAUSS AND THE AMERICAN POLITICAL RELIGION

for all."14 If given a choice between unfet-
tered free markets and Friedrich Hayek's
approach, both Strauss and Voegelin would
most likely have chosen Hayek.

S

trauss's and Voegelin's experience in
Austria and Germany prior to and after
World War II would have disposed their
students to be critical of "movements." And
Voegelin's political theory demanded that
the political theorist avoid imposing the
dogma of partisan politics on the philosophic
quest. Yet, despite their protests, the works
of Strauss and Voegelin came to be identi-
fied with a conservative movement. And for
many movement conservatives, Voegelin
and Strauss were their theoretical guides.
Unfortunately, Strauss's influence on the
American conservative movement does not
have a happy ending, and this is due to his
fascination with what he calls "natural right."
Like Voegelin, Strauss taught classical
Greek philosophy with courses focused
on the dialogues of Plato and the works of
Aristotle. The students of both Strauss and
Voegelin were thus rooted in these clas-
sics, and their later careers were devoted to
teaching these works and, for some, writing
analyses of the Greek natural philosophers
and the philosophy of Socrates, Plato, and
Aristotle. Many prominent scholars in the
"Straussian school" contributed to a broader
understanding of classical philosophy. How-
ever, Strauss's influential Natural Right and
History revealed a mistaken assumption that
the Declaration of Independence rooted the
American regime in natural right doctrine.
To a large extent, the social disorder of
American society today, the general loss of
community, the decline of authority, and the
disdain that our intellectuals have toward
America and all things American, as well as
a common acceptance of relativism that is
deepening into nihilism, begin in a "natu-

ral right" interpretation of the Declaration
of Independence.15 Strauss's belief that the
American regime via the Declaration of Inde-
pendence is rooted in natural right doctrine
follows from his assumption that "in spite of
their opposition to each other, they [Hobbes
and classic philosophy] are motivated by fun-
damentally the same spirit. Their origin is the
concern with a right or sound order of society
whose actualization is probable." Treating
classical philosophy as equivalent on a moral
or theoretical level to modern political theory
is troubling. Strauss observes, for example,
that Marlowe's statement that Machiavelli
held that "there is no sin but ignorance . . . is
almost a definition of the philosopher"
(Natural Right, 190-91, 177).
Machiavelli a philosopher?
And the "Discourse on the Origin of
Inequality" of Rousseau, Strauss writes, is
decidedly the work of a "philosopher" (264).
Rousseau, whose writings inspired the Ter-
ror of the French Revolution, a philosopher?
And that brings us to this question. If, as
Strauss proclaimed, the philosopher is the
representative of truth, how can the specu-
lations of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau be
considered philosophic? In the course of his
interpretation of the doctrine of natural right,
Strauss works within the systems of Hobbes,
Locke, and Rousseau as if they were engaged
in inquiries equivalent to the inquiries of the
Greek natural philosophers, Socrates, Plato,
and Aristotle, and not wholly different.
While Strauss certainly sees Hobbes, Locke,
and Rousseau in continuity with Plato and
Aristotle, his final chapter in Natural Right
and History takes up the "Crisis" of modern
natural right. One could infer from his argu-
ment that while the Enlightenment figures
are philosophers, their philosophy is prob-
lematic. But Strauss's lack of, or weak, criti-
cism of the "moderns" and his silence in the
face of the modern philosophers' rejection of
11
Modern Age - Fall 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Modern Age - Fall 2014
